an; it's almost midnight and I have to be up super early but I was way too hyped to post this chapter so I hope you like it even though I'm tired and its poop. (4.8k word count)

Wake me before you go.

Tisper heaved her things into the wrangler. A black dufflebag with all her arrows inside, and a change of clothes—just in case.

Wake me before you go. Right.

What was he going to do? Tease her again? Boys like Felix weren't made for girls like Tisper. They didn't know the true weight of their flattery until their words met gravity—and suddenly they were ripping down walls and trees and mountains until the whole world was just a colorless, shapeless thing.

Boys like Felix Cummins shattered universes with their perfect smiles. She was not going to live in the sad, gray place left behind.

"Where the hell's Nicon?" Matt asked. "It's nearly six."

The sun had yet to rise, and the sky was an oil painting of deep fuchsia and the golden glow of a looming morning. Any minute now, the sun would be peaking over the tree tops—just barely breaking the horizon to shine down on Hollywood in ways it didn't shine on the rest of the world.

Tisper checked her pockets for her phone and said, "You almost sound eager to walk into a trash heap of violent killers."

Sadie had been pacing the front porch with a frown for a while now—but her footsteps moved faster when Tisper spoke.

"I don't think this is a good idea, you guys. Can you just... I mean, shouldn't you have weapons?"

"I do," Tisper said. "Besides, our plan isn't to just drop in and start shooting."

"What is the plan?" Jaylin asked, slouched against the side of the Jeep. He was starting to stubble and Tisper hated it. Understandably, Jaylin didn't have it in him to shave, but with the addition of muscles and the tired sleep-stains beneath his eyes, he'd had aged nearly ten years in just a few days. Now his voice grated and dragged, weighed down with cynicism and hopelessness. But occasionally, when they spoke of Andre, it flared with something else.

"The plan was to go," Bailey said, tearing into the sandwich Lisa had sent him off with. Mouth full, he added, "So let's blow this joint."

"Well I know for a fact, they have what they need to murder both of you. Which would kind of be counter-productive," Tisper said. "Sure, Matt and I are soft and squishy, but they're werewolf hunters. Killing humans would be like..."

"Like homicide," Matt said.

"Exactly."

Bailey lowered his sandwich and something about his gaze felt like nails on a chalkboard to Tisper. She didn't know exactly what it was about Bailey's stare, but it cut through her like butter.

"And you think when the police look at a human corpse of a dead werewolf, their first thought is, 'hmm bullet holes. Definitely natural causes.'" Bailey said. "No. When we die, we turn back. Sometimes it takes hours, and sometimes it takes days, but we always turn back."

It was the most Tisper had ever heard Bailey speak at once without throwing down an explicative. She racked her mind for some kind of hard-edged retort, but the coffee hadn't hit her veins yet and nothing came to mind. Besides, he had a point. If wolves always turned back to men, then Andre would have no qualms with slaying a human being.

"So if that's true," Matt said, "how do y'all keep your dead away from the cops?"

Tisper was the one to answer, "Izzy told me that when a werewolf dies, they burn the body. Like a viking funeral."

Jaylin paused when she said it, part-way through tossing a medical kit into the trunk. It didn't take more than second for her to understand why. If they didn't get to Ziya in time, it would be Quentin's funeral. Quentin's fire.

"It is a viking funeral," Bailey said. "Who the hell do you think the Norse got the idea from?"

Tisper laid her bow down carefully atop her dufflebag. "Okay, fine. But why were the hunters only killing wolves at the hotel?"

"They're easier to move that way," Jaylin muttered. "They'd probably planned to dump the bodies somewhere before they turned human again."

"We—I mean you stay as you are and it'll at least make things harder for 'em," Matt said. "Right? I mean, no one wants a human corpse on their hands."

But the truth was that no one knew where Andre's line was drawn. Whether he cared at all about the law—whether he was even capable of being caught. Now that they'd discussed it, Tisper was sure: if Andre wanted them all dead, he'd kill them without a second thought, human or not.

"I wake up at the arse crack of dawn to give you a gift," said a voice at the door, "and ye' can't be damned to follow direction."

Felix was sleep-mussed, hair crooked and haywire, arms folded over his head in a stretched that exhibited all the right bare bits of skin at his hips—

No, Tisper. No hips. No skin.

She turned back to the Wrangler, re-organizing all of the bags and supplies they'd packed in the back for no reason other than it meant she wasn't looking at Felix.

"What gift?" she grumbled.

"Come inside. I don't want these bastards knowing how hospitable I am."

"No, I'm fine, thank you."

"Princess," he said, his voice deep and ground and soft. The sound put bumps on Tisper's arms.

She shut the hatch with much more force than necessary and stomped back toward the house.

The living room was empty of wolves—not a sound stirring but the pulse of Quentin's vital monitor and the ticking of an old clock in the kitchen. Felix took a seat on the arm of the sofa and crooked a finger toward her. "Come. Give me your hand."

Tisper inched just a bit closer, left arm outstretched.

Felix batted it gently away. "Other hand. Not asking ye to marry me."

She held out the right, but didn't dare look to Felix. Medicine for her battered fingers, she assumed—since the calloused skin was only bad on the right hand. But then she felt something warm and leather slide over her knuckles and she turned her sights to the glove he'd bound around her wrist. An archer's glove—one that only covered her three middle fingers; the others left bare because they had no business with the string of her bow.

"Did you make it?" she asked, flexing her fist in the tight leather. It was restricting, but not so much that it'd interfere with her shooting.

"Sure," said Felix.

She turned the glove over and took a look at the tag on the inside wrist. "Made in China."

"That's just my brand," Felix said, and there was that grin. That too-perfect grin that would crumble her mountains if she gave it a second thought. "I bought it," he admitted. "Thought I remembered owning one for a moment."

Tisper ran her bare fingers down the fine leather, the tips padded to grip the string. "It's kind of ugly."

Felix scoffed. "They don't come in cotton candy pink."

"Thank you," Tisper said. She didn't want to seem as fond of the little glove as she actually was. The knuckles would need adjusted, but this little leather mitten made her feel like something of a... superhero. "I'll use it."

"Best ye' do. Can't afford to have you shooting the dirt anymore."

She should have known better than to overwork herself. The glove would save her fingers the suffrage, but she'd have to be smarter about her shooting from here out. She hated the thought of asking Felix for help, so she'd figure it out on her own. She'd learn how to get better without throwing so much time away. And then, if she still needed him, maybe she'd ask.

She stepped back toward the door to rejoin the others, but Felix reached out and caught her by the pocket of her sweater.

"Wait," he said, "wanted to ask you something." He let her pocket go and sat there, arms draped over his knees. "Why Tisperella?"

"What?"

"Why'd ye' choose it?" he asked. "Why not a common name? Brittany," he said, "or Rose?"

Tisper wrinkled her nose and looked to the warm glove in her hand. "I hate roses. I'd never choose Rose."

"And why not?"

"Because," she groaned. It wasn't a story she'd been dying to tell, but Felix's eyes were an unavoidable kind of devouring. The kind of eyes that held too much control; the kind of gaze that raked the coals back and brought a certain fire to her stomach. One she wasn't prepared for. She let out a weak breath. "Back when I lived with my mom, in her big, white, picket-fence house, she had a pair of rose bushes out front. She cared about those rose bushes more than she ever cared about me. They've got to be decades old now—she was always out there clipping the dead buds. The only time I ever saw her get her hands dirty was when she was tending to them. God forbid we were ever to touch those rose bushes."

Felix considered her story for a soft moment, watching her mind the strap around her wrist. "Why the name you chose?"

"Tisperella was from a fairytale my grandmother used to tell me," she explained. "A literal fairy tale—about fairies. You don't want to hear it."

"I do."

"Why?"

"Felt like I'd cracked a rib when I told ye my past," Felix said. "I want even."

She traced along the seam of her middle finger and frowned. "Do I have to?"

"No. But you will." He cut that grin again, his smile a strange, temping curve that shown just the right amount of teeth. "Because I've got a way of getting what I want, and lately, I can't stop wondering."

Those last four words blistered in her chest, and she thanked God for a moment that her blush wasn't as telling as Jaylin's or Matt's. Her warm skin tone often hid the heat from her face, but she felt the burn all the same.

"Fine," she forfeited. "Tisperella was a fairy, born into a family of royal fairies. But she was different than her sisters. They had wings like butterflies, beautiful long hair, golden skin, eyes that glowed like sunlight. Tisperella was nothing like that. She was gray and dull and she couldn't fly like the others. The fairies treated her like crap, left her to walk miles while they flew through clouds with their butterfly wings. But in the end, you find out that Tisperella was the most important fairy of all. It was her footsteps that made grass grow and flowers bloom. Tisperella was beauty. The essence of it."

It was embarrassing to say out loud. That she'd chosen the name of a fairy because she hoped to live the legacy. She fidgeted with the glove, her fingers sweating beneath the leather.

"Everyone wants to change something about themselves," she said softly. "I thought, if I couldn't be the kind of beautiful I wanted to be, then I could be like Tisperella. I could make everything around me beautiful."

Felix wasn't looking at her anymore. His eyes had cast down to the floorboards, and he muttered, "Don't think I've ever heard that story."

"Most people haven't," Tisper said. "Sometimes I think she made it up, just for me." The air between them had gone tight and solemn, and it didn't sit in Tisper well, so she stepped back toward the door and said, "Thanks again. For the glove."

Felix nodded to her slightly, and that was all.

By the time she'd stepped back outside, it was to the sight of a wolf, long and lanky in frame, but just as elegant as every wolf before him. Nicon.

"He'll follow us on foot," Jaylin said when he spotted her. "Filled up the tank, Matt?"

"Yessir."

"Tisper." Jaylin gestured toward the Wrangler. A look that said, you ready?

She clamored into the back beside Bailey and fastened her glove around her hand, flexing and unflexing the leather around her fingers. She wasn't sure if it would make a difference—if she'd shoot any straighter, or if it would throw her aim off altogether, but Felix was right about one thing. She couldn't afford to keep shooting at the dirt.

Tisper hadn't put too much thought into where the hideout would be, but the last thing she expect was for Bailey's nose to lead them straight to the sea-side. It wasn't a tourist beach they stopped at, but a place where all access to the sand was barred off by private property fences, ten feet tall at least. They threw their equipment over into the sand where some of it would stay—things like herbal remedies and health capsules that wouldn't do them any good in the heat of things anyway. Then they climbed the fence and dropped down into the sandy dunes.

It was large beach-side cabin Bailey led them to, with a metal shed out front for boating equipment and beach vehicles. A ring buoy had been nailed to the outside of the shed and something about the beach-side decor it didn't sit right with Tisper. Namely the metal flamingos that met at the beaks to form a heart with their necks.

"This place can't belong to them," she whispered. "Think they broke in?"

"Could be," said Jaylin.

Matt scowled. "So you're tellin' me these pricks are living it out on someone else's dime?"

"Does that shock you?" Tisper asked.

"All of you, shut up," growled Bailey, a hand held up to silence them all. But the house was still a fair distance away, and beyond the roar of the waves, there was no way they could be heard by humans.

"Jesus, if you were any more broody, your forehead would fall right off of your face. You did your part," Tisper told the hound, waving a hand at the air. "You can go now."

"Shhh," he hissed again, and this time Tisper did—because there was a calculation in Bailey's eyes. A strange, moving focus that flittered from the house, to the tall grassy dunes, to the fence there they'd left the wrangler.

"Come out," he grumbled. "I know you're here."

A voice said in reply, "Then you know I could alert the others." A woman stepped out from behind the billow of a blue tarp—one that'd been laid over the noses of several old canoes. Tisper recognized her faintly from Perigee night. The woman who had deciphered wolves from witches in the ballroom.

"You won't," Bailey said. "If you wanted to, you would have already."

"Why are you here?" Jaylin asked. "Why are you working with them?"

The woman shook her head twice, her freckle-peppered cheeks shimmering with sweat in the sunlight. Her skin was tanned a dark beige that made her russet hair look lighter than it was—but Tisper assumed that werewolves probably recovered from sunburns before they even really set in. Did the hunters make her stay outside in the heat?

Jaylin moved toward her with an aggressive stride. "Why are you helping them kill our wolves?"

The woman blinked and sunk back a single step into the deep sand. The question seemed to strike a fracture in her. "I never wanted to be involved in this," she said.

"Then why are you here?" Jaylin stressed again.

"Ziya's orders," said the woman. "I was her most commendable hound, but I never wanted—" Realizing how loud she'd become, the woman took a glance behind her to the beach house and sighed. "I never wanted to kill anyone. None of us do. Ziya's turned tyrannical. She's started murdering those of us who ever get the chance to disobey."

"So help us stop her," Jaylin said. "We just need to find her."

"She's never in the same place at once." The woman rubbed her wrists and glanced back a second time toward the beach cabin. "Andre knows where she is."

"Then we'll squeeze the answers out of him," Tisper declared.

"There are eight of them in there and they always have guns on them," the stranger said. "You should turn around now, before you get us all in trouble."

Jaylin shook his head. "No." Then he shook it again. It seemed like he couldn't stop shaking it. "We'll find a way out for you," he said. "But we can't leave. We can't—not until we get what we came for."

The woman paused, bringing her wrist to her chest, resting her fingers on the fine bones of her collar. "You'll help me?"

"If you can help us," Jaylin said.

She shifted uneasily in the uneven sand. "What do you want me to do?"

"Could you lure the others out?" Matt asked. "A wolf hunt or somethin'?"

"Andre would never miss out on a hunt. And what happens when there's no wolf? They'd catch on—they'd kill me for tricking them."

Tisper jumped to the sound of a yap, coming from the tall grass behind the fence. Nicon stepped out and sat just on the other side of the wire, sunlight gathering in the vivid oak of his eyes.

"What's he saying?" Tisper asked.

"That he has an idea," Jaylin said.

Matt watched the time tick down on the screen of his phone, and once the two minutes had passed that Nicon had asked for, they huddled behind a dune, nearly thirty yards away. Somewhere in the near distance, Nicon crooned, a long yawning howl into the air. His signal for the chase to begin. It took less than sixty seconds for the woman—who had introduced herself as Charlie—to lead a pack of armed men out into the front of the home.

"It's the one?" one of the hunters was asking. "That's the bastard that killed Mica?"

It didn't take a lot to lay the pieces in place. Whoever Mica was, he'd been killed by a wolf on Perigee night—but Tisper knew it probably wasn't Nicon. It didn't matter; he'd give them the run-around. Once they saw a wolf, actually saw a living wolf in the streets of Santa Monica—or where ever the hell they were—those men would stop at nothing to avenge their fallen comrade, and Charlie would be off the hook.

The hunters gathered in their respectable cars and Charlie opened the gate and hauled herself into the bed of a pickup as it roved through. If all had gone as planned, Andre's car would be the last to stay on the lot.

Once the men were gone through the gate, Tisper followed Jaylin and Matt to the basement access doors on the side of the house. It was the only way to get in without tipping Andre off, but the doors were chained with a thick corroding metal. Tisper and Matt were searching through the bags of tools for something to break the chains when Jaylin pulled them apart with his own hands—a loud clank resonating when a chunk of metal rebounded off of those metal heart-shaped flamingos.

They hurried inside, just in case the noise had alerted anyone.

The basement stunk of dust and mildew, and they wandered blindly through sheeted belongings while Bailey waited outside, on watch for the hunters' return. Tisper suppressed a scream when she passed by a motion-censor Christmas ornament, and Little Saint Nick blared through the speaker of a hoola-hooping Santa figurine. They all froze after that, waiting to see if someone upstairs might've heard. Maybe not all of the hunters had left with Charlie. Maybe Andre wasn't the only killer in the place.

When there were no footsteps or voices above, they continued on, carefully and quietly up the old wooden steps.

The inside of the home was filthy. It was obvious to Tisper by the photos on the walls and the expensive decor, and the shimmering light structures above, that this was likely a vacation house for a wealthy family. At least, before Andre got his hands on it. Now everything stunk like body odor and beer, and faintly of frozen burritos, cooked to cinders in a microwave oven.

Garbage piled the floor—old ammunition cases, pizza boxes and takeout containers, with plenty of moldy food still inside. Tisper pinched her nose and tiptoed over the filth, between crumpled papers and old magazines. And then Jaylin held out a hand to stop her from walking any further.

Just around the corner, Andre was hunched over shuffling around in the kitchen; throwing doors open, slamming them shut, tossing papers to the floor and cursing as he fumbled through cupboards and the clutter on the counter.

"Where the fuck are they?" he growled. "Where are my goddamn keys?"

With Charlie. That's where they were.

Andre keeps all of his important supplies in his Hummer, she'd told them. Never leaves in anyone else's car.

They moved forward while his back was turned—slowly, silently.

Jaylin reached to Tisper's back, drew an arrow from her quill and passed it on to her. It was the subtle click of the arrow nocking into place that made Andre stiffen. He turned to them slowly and rigidly, a crooked smile gashing his face. "Well I'll be damned," he said. The Russian accent was faint, but Tisper could definitely decipher it now. "All this time looking for the lich and the lich came to me."

When Andre moved, it was fast. A quick grab for the gun on his hip—one Tisper hadn't even noticed until now. She released her string and the arrow snapped from the grip if her leather gloves. Before she could know just where it had landed, the gun in Andre's hand clattered to the floor and popped with a spark of light as it discharged, putting a hole right through the wall of the cabin.

Matt was quick to scoop the weapon up, holding it like it was the most natural thing in the world—the barrel pointed straight at Andre.

Tisper could see now why he'd dropped the gun. Her arrow had pierced right through the cartilage of his ear, pinned him back against the wooden cupboards behind his head. Blood slipped down the side of his face and he grimaced as he broke the arrow in two to free himself. She wasn't taking any chances. She nocked another one and aimed it straight for his face.

"Okay," Andre said, taking a look at the blood that wet his palm. "Okay. What do you want, huh? Money? If it's money, you're shit out of luck. I haven't been paid yet."

Jaylin kicked a chair toward him. With all the clutter around, it only slid half way. "Sit down," he ordered.

Andre followed his command, rounding the chair with his hands harmlessly splayed in the air—but he did it all with a smile that made Tisper's stomach turn.

"God damn," he said, slumping back in the seat. "This is some kind of cruel joke, huh? Came here to capture the lich, and I'm the one with a gun to my head."

"Where's Ziya?" Jaylin asked, stepping over filth to near him. "Where is she?"

"That's all you wanted?" Andre asked. "Do what you want with Ziya. The bitch is in Maine somewhere, hiding out while I'm doing all of her dirty work."

"Where in Maine?" Jaylin asked.

"I don't know," Andre said. "It's Maine. It takes five minutes to get from one end to the other, just look around."

"Jay," Matt said, adjusting his footing, that gun still extended in his hands. His knuckles were going white around it. "We shouldn't stay too long, man."

"Why did you shoot Quentin?" Jaylin asked.

"Jay," Matt pressed further. "We got what we wanted, lets—"

"No." Jaylin took the gun from his hands and tested the weight in his palm. Finger over the trigger, he held it straight to Andre's face. One more step and it would be kissing his nose. "Why would you try to kill your own son?"

Andre kept his cool composure—even staring into the eye of a barrel. "He's not my son."

"He is your son," Jaylin snarled. "He's your goddamn son."

"Who gives a shit about that?"

One hard swing of Jaylin's fist and the sound of metal impact cracked through the kitchen. Andre's head jerked to the side—the skin of his cheek swelled red from hit of the revolver. That cool way about him thinned into anger.

"I can't wait to hand you over to Ziya," Andre spat, blood staining the gaps in his teeth. "Can't wait to see her turn you inside out like the others."

Jaylin didn't stop to take a breath. He pressed the barrel of the gun to the side of Andre's skull. Hard enough to make the man cant his head. "Tell me how to fix him."

Andre laughed, a deep, wild wet sound. Blood filled the corner of his mouth. "You can't."

"Tell me!" Jaylin shouted.

Tisper felt her heart stutter. "Jaylin..."

"You can't fix it." Andre croaked out a laugh. "Why do you think I used those bullets? That boy's always been slippery. He's a hard kill. Still, I'm surprised he's not dead yet."

"You're full of shit," Jaylin said. "There's a way. There has to be a way. Tell me how to kill Ziya."

This time Andre guffawed—a deep, rich laugh that flecked the blood from his mouth. "Kill Ziya? Even if I knew, why would I tell you? If I knew how to kill Ziya, I'd have done it already and took her goddamn fortune. There is no way to kill Ziya." He tilted his head back, watched Jaylin with that too-satisfied smirk. "But there are plenty of ways to kill your wolves. You know why Ziya's blood makes such a good weapon? Makes them suffer," Andre said. "Long and hard before they die."

Jaylin drew back, crunching a beer can beneath his feet, that gun still shaking in his hand. Tisper was so ready to take him by the shoulder, to drag him from this hell so they could take their search to Maine. Fuck Andre. Quentin wasn't going to suffer for much longer, and he wasn't going to die. They'd find Ziya. They'd find her and they'd—

Then the Jaylin pulled the trigger.

It was so fast; a snap, a spark of light—a resounding echo that drilled too deep into Tisper's ears.

And Jaylin stood there, the weapon still stiff in his hand. Blood leaked out through the hole in Andre's chest and whatever life in him deflated in a single heave of finality. His head rolled slowly to his shoulder, and he slumped there. Dead in the kitchen chair.

Matt was the first to find motion again. He took the gun from Jaylin's hand. Jaylin—who was still frozen there, trembling. Just trembling.

"Jaylin," Tisper whispered and he turned to her, shoulders stiff. A breath heaved into his body and his eyes wet with tears.

"I didn't mean to." There was hardly any voice to his words, just deep sobs and thin breath. Tisper took him into her arms and he trembled there, shaking terribly against her shoulder. "I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to."

She didn't know what to do but to cling to him. To hold him close while she watched the last of the life slip from Andre's eyes.

"Tisper," Matt whispered. All his dad's Police work must've done a fair job of preparing Matt for things like this, because he was the only one not shaken. He turned on the safety, shoved the gun in his back jean pocket and tugged his shirt down over it. "Thats two gunshots now. We gotta go."

"Jaylin, listen to me," Tisper said, taking him by the face. "If you hadn't killed him, I would have."

It was a lie—she'd wanted to maim him most definitely, but Tisper hadn't expected their mission to end in death—even if it was Andre. For the sake of momentum, she urged Jaylin's eyes on her own. "We don't have time to question the little things."

"Little things," said Jaylin. "I just killed him—I just killed someone."

"A murderer, Jaylin. You killed a murderer. Ziya is murdering people, too—you heard Charlie. And the only solution to Ziya is death. I can't imagine we have very many choices anymore."

"But Ziya." Jaylin wiped his clammy hands up his face. "He had information, I—"

"Guys," Matt beckoned, turning back toward the hallway where they'd come. "Let's go."

"It doesn't matter now, Jaylin. All we need to focus on now is getting back to the watch." Tisper yanked him by the wrist before he could look back at the body. They hurried down the soft steps into the basement, and she heard him whisper, "I killed Olivia, too."

"No."

"Yes I did. What if—what if I become someone like Andre?"

"It won't happen," she said as they hurried past the hoola-hooping Santa Claus. Matt shoved the basement access doors open, and in the light that filled the room, Tisper found Jaylin's eyes. They were soft and tired and full of tears. "Listen to me," she said, taking his cheeks in her palms. "We're going to help people, Jaylin. A lot of people. But we need to keep moving forward, do you understand?"

In her hands, Jaylin nodded.

"Good. Everything will be fine," she said, pushing him toward the open doors. "I promise."

In the end, you'll get your happily-ever-after. I swear to God, you will.